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tv   Up W Chris Hayes  MSNBC  March 9, 2013 5:00am-7:00am PST

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face time and think time make a difference. at edward jones, it's how we make sense of investing. ♪ good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. a suicide bomber hit the afghan defense ministry overnight killing nine civilians just hours after chuck hagel arrived in the country. and nicolas maduro who served as venezuela's vice president under hugo chavez was sworn in friday. we'll have more on venezuela. i'm joined by the research fellow at stanford university whoever administration. also served on the policy board as an iraq adviser.
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tim carney, the washington examiner. mile la wylie, founder of the center for social justice. and laura murray, director of the aclu director's office in washington. good to have you here. on thursday, the senate voted 63-34 to confirm john brennan as the director of the cia. it came from a 13-hour talking session of rand paul. and eric holder asked about the administration's views about quote, the president has power to authorize lethal force such as a drone strike and without trial. holder responded saying, it is possible, i suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the constitution and applicable laws of the united states for the president to authorize the militia tar to use lethal force within the territory of the united states.
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holder's response seems to crystallize, the worst fears of many of the administration's targeted killing policy. and the broad assertion of presidential power that undergirds. paul seized on that wednesday summarizing his exchange withholder on the floor. >> when i asked the president, you can kill an american on american soil, it should have been an easy answer. it's an easy question. it should have been a resounding and unequivocal no. the president's response, he hasn't killed anyone yet. we're supposed to be comforted by that. the president says i haven't killed anyone yet. he goes on to say, and i have no intention of killing americans. but i might. is that enough? are we satisfied by that? >> on thursday, attorney general holder responded to paul's filibuster by clarifying the
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administration's position. it's come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question, does the president have the authority to use a weaponize oohized drone to kill an american not engaged in combat on american soil? the answer is no. paul himself said he was satisfied with the answer and even went on to vote for john brenn brennan's confirmation. it's important to note while the filibuster did force him to answer a specific question about the drone program, it failed to hold the administration accountable on some larger questions regarding both the drone program and brennan's confirmation as a whole. namely was was john brennan's role in the torture program at the agency. and what is the legal reason being used by the office of legal counsel in the department of justice to justify the drone program and targeted killing more broadly. after a brief spotlight for rand paul and the broader level of american capitalism, what exactly has been accomplished. that's the question. let's start off with this.
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i love hypotheticals just because i was a philosophy major because i love hypotheticals anyway. i feel like they're useful for reasoning. politicians hate hypotheticals. anytime you're in a hearing, as a journalist, you come up with a great hypothetical. and you're like, i'm not going to answer hypotheticals. that was remark only conce conceptually about the 13 hours. it was an extended rift on the hypothetical, right? the jane fonda sitting in a cafe somehow became the hypothetical. did we learn anything, laura, did we learn anything substantive about the administration's position on what are the binding constraints on how they view their executive authority in terms of targeted killing? >> i think so we learned a lot. and i think it started with the brennan nomination and it started with the senate intelligence committee asking for the office of legal counsel opinions that justify the drone and the vast killing program that the president has put in place. and so i think this was a
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tipping point of sorts like lieutenant dan troy, chaining himself to the white house gate. >> over don't ask don't tell? >> over don't ask, don't tell. there's a sense of frustration that congress cannot engage in its proper oversight ability without having these memos. and also, the president vows to follow the rule of law. but what are the rules? >> right. >> and so, we can't be in this democracy without knowing that there are proper checks and balances in place. to make sure that the president is not overreaching. that he is operating within the rule of law. >> yeah. i agree with laura. and i think one of the problems that we've had is, you know, eric holder just spoke at northwestern also after this, which i think is even an additional amount of information that we got solely by virtue of the fact that he was giving a speech about how they interpreted the president's power. now, we haven't had actually a
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full discussion about whether they're right. >> right. >> so i think that's a little bit problematic. but it's a little bit like these dribs and drabs of getting these interpretations. >> yes, there's an op-ed in "the new york times" this morning. and a number of other commentators who have said, actually, we don't know not engaged in combat means? >> and this white house and every white house, is famously slippery with words. and eric holder is a lawyer. >> right. >> so i've dealt with president obama saying something that the natural interpretation of it was one thing. clearly, afterwards, he said, oh, well, when i said that, i was doing this. it was some possible interpretation of words. not engaging in combat, it could mean somebody who is not currently trying to do an attack. an imminent attack. or they say, we call you an enemy combatant because we think down the line you plan on doing that. so you could be sitting in a cafe and fit in the category of what holder calls engaged in
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combat. >> it's funny, when i first read the holder response about extraordinary. i can imagine extraordinary circumstances in 9/11 and pearl harbor. actually, my experience is, this is kind of a nothing. yes, one can imagine a rebellion against the united states that started in some, you know, compound in which people took up arms insurrection and there are military force. and due process. obviously that happened in the civil war and there was a huge amount. so it seemed to me like, yes, you could always construct some plausible scenario under which particularly extraordinary circumstances which kind of military force is needed. and yet, it was interesting to me that that was the thing that set everything off. >> well, i think it's a little bit deeper than that. and we're a decade or more than a decade now into basically two wars of which americans have served and lost their lives. and literally thousands of
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allied supporters have lost their lives and iraqis and afghans. and i think we have a new type of war that is different than what we have experienced for most of our history. and we really don't have the morality of the new bar. irregular war fare, transnational actors that are terrorists. we're fighting a different type of war, but we don't have really the rules of the types of wars that we're now fighting. but at the international level, we're kind of developing international norms and laws as we go. and we're trying to figure out what's consistent with our own values. so i thought what happened this past week was a deeper question about who we are in the world. how do we fight wars with an asymmetric environment. and how do we help generate our concerns at the national level. >> okay. all of these are very kind words to say about this whole thing. so let me take the opposite side of this which is like this is
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preposterous grand standing, okay? first of all, there's a tremendous amount of disingenuousness here. "a." "b," it's also not an extent that the hypothetical that's constructed is you, american citizen, watching there. because there are actual people actually getting killed in actual cafes in the world. those cafes are in waziristan and yemen. you know what, i'm sorry, but the republican party has not been rising to the -- >> okay. >> that's not quite true. >> it is true. >> no, no, no. >> all right. i've got a reaction out of all of you. >> there are people in the party that came to the floor, namely the younger senators, rubio, cruz, flake. >> mike lee. >> mike lieu free from utah. they came to the floor and it was sort of a changing of the guard. and they represented the divisions within the republican party. and democrats, ron white, udall.
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senator leahy who is chair of the judiciary committee have expressed concerns about what the rules are. why can't we know what the rules are for this vast killing program. >> it's important to note those aren't just younger senators. all the senators, rubio, paul, lee, toomey. they all came in representing the establishment. >> but i also think what's important that happened this past week, not to put a completely positive spin on it, but there was something important about democracy at work. whether you think the actors were genuine within themselves. there say civil war going on in the republican party. and that's kind of what you're referring to. and i think it was showing up this past week. in very important ways not just generational. but also about these fundamental
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issues of who are awe. and what's the real base and who do we speak to. >> that is the question. you set a new guard. you noted that the people that stood with rams to invoke the hash tag were largely tea party of recently elected. and you're saying there's a certain civil war in the republican party. i would like to dig deeper into that. i think that's the story out of this. let's get into this right after this break. the etting rid of dark spots will restore even skin tone? think again. introducing olay professional even skin tone. developed by experts in skin genomics to target 5 major causes of uneven skin tone
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the proposition being deb e debated, is this is some changing of the guard? some fissure within the conservative coalition? >> i don't think so. i think what's really important to note here, i think your point about political grandstanding is in part right. so while i agree with laura, very much so it's been
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critically important to have this information surface. and that there's no question that the filibuster helped it to surface because the administration's not been sufficiently transparent which is a problem. but at the same time, you know, the issue was whether brennan should be cia chief. and, you know, i think as kiron said, he got a pass. we kind of got deflected on this highly hypothetical issue which we should debate. by the way, congress has many mechanisms to debate, short of a filibuster that actually takes on both the constitutional questions and the questions of the war powers act. and things that actually we should be discussing. >> what i would say, the paul -- i thought the rand paul filibuster was at its best when he got to the broader issues about how long should we be in the war on terror. he actually, to rand paul's credit, introduced something in the senate to repeal iraq authorization of military force. in the house, barbara lee has introduced a bill to repeal the
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2001 use of military force which is of course, cited in the white paper that we got for targeted killing. it was cited throughout. i would like to see rand paul follow up on this rhetoric by introducing a bill in the senate. >> if al al awlaki were sitting in a cafe. >> he does move within the party, the bounds of permissible decent. in 2002, 2004, as a conservative in good standing, i and my boss bob know vac opposed the iraq war. my boss got called unpatriotic by doing it. twitter provides this immediate feedback mechanism, all the republican senators say, wait a second, this is seen as
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unpopular. some of them on the floor said, you should see what's happening on twitter. so now it's acceptable at least. >> can i just say this in the olympics of disingenuousness, we have the silver and gold and bronze here. michele bachmann. jennifer reuben who basically thinks that ahmadinejad is hitler. and we should, essentially, support preemptive war against iran. rand paul's big moment, 12 hours 51 minutes worth. why he and rubio stand above the crowd. and laura ingraham, mr. president, it's not food poisoning. give me a break. >> wait a minute, there's nothing against grandstanding. barack obama does it. every politician does it. there's nothing wrong with it but what we've been trying to do for five years, at least, at the aclu, is to get the government to release the olc memos to tell
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us what the rationale is for targeting an american citizen. and his 16-year-old son. who was killed. who is not accused of any wrongdoing. what are the internal checks and balances. what is the policy based on. >> sure. and i'm supportive of that throughout. >> i know. but if rand paul didn't have that filibuster, we wouldn't be here having this conversation. >> first of all -- factually, i don't think that's true in so far as, the agreement came from d.o.j. to let the members of the senate intelligence committee see the memos heretofore released. that happened before the rand paul filibuster. zbrp b >> i know. but i'm saying the public awareness of that would not exist. >> i think what's going on here is really important. when you have someone from the aclu who is basically in concert with the stance that rand paul took. i think it suggests that we're
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going to see a different kind of coalition arising in the united states about issues of war. how we execute wars. you've got human rights activists who are also asking some of the same questions that rand paul in his best, during the filibuster, if you take the grandstanding away there were some important philosophical issues that he was asking. >> absolutely. >> and it opens up the public debate. it doesn't matter who does it. the fact that we're now talking about how long we're going to be in the long war. are we in a war with terror. what does that mean. it wasn't happening to the administration that had said we are really going to scale back. >> i just want to be clear on my issue. i've been talking about the issue since we got the show. i absolutely 1,000% agree. they haven't been transparent. i don't think we should be in war everywhere all over the globe, killing people.
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i absolutely agree with you. this has brought focus to it. so all of that is true substantively. i'm in the both end camp. i don't want to be overly sanguine about what this means for american politician. a lot of this is just opportunistic opposition. opportunistic opposition can have incredible salli you tore implications. and let's not forget who controls the political establishment in both parties which is still absolutely 1,000% to the status quo. let me just say, the thing you need to know brennan vote enknor brennan after this whole thing. >> when rand paul tried to move that, nonbinding resolution to
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say it's unconstitutional to kill american citizens on american soil, didn't get their objective. we will not allow a vote on this nonbinding resolution. >> i agree with you. >> i think it gives the democrats too much credit. i think they're just as much pro-targeted killing as a -- >> oh, that is absurd. with udall on the senate intelligence committee asked for these documents. >> but if the administration -- >> leahy signed a letter with grassley, asking for the documents saying these raise grave constitutional concerns. >> he voted against brennan, too, i should say. >> and wyden is talking about the due process caucus. including the democrats and republic republicans. so a new caucus is forming. i don't think the democrats were missing in action at all.
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>> it misses the point this is in context of filibuster. i don't think we can miss the fact if i were a democrat i'd be sitting here thinking i agree with the way we have this debate and i don't think this is the way we should have it. i think it's oversimplistic to say because they didn't stand and do grand stand -- >> i just want the space to open up. i've just been cynical about whether or not in fact the space is opening up. two examples, one is john mccain and lindsey graham on the floor. two ways to interpret it. one, you can interpret it as their reasserting control over what people think about the issues. and the other is, they're actually kind of threatened. we're going to take a break and we'll come back. graham and paul on the floor. [ watch ticking ] [ engine revs ] come in. ♪
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of america, our government, would drop a drone fire missile on jane fonda. that is -- that brings the conversation from a serious discussion about u.s. policy to the realm of the ridiculous. >> to my republican colleagues, i don't remember any of you coming down here, suggesting that president bush was going to kill anybody with a drone. here's what i worry about. that al qaeda who has killed 2,958 of us is going to add to the total if we let our guard down. >> that's lindsey graham and john mccain, reasserting their dominance of what the sort of republican foreign policy line is. and rebelling against it. and it gets to the point about whether we're seeing some kind of change, right? and here to me is the test case, okay. i agree. there was something sort of dramatic and remarkable. and again, i want to be clear, it was good that he did that.
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we should have that conversation, right? my skepticism of the motives of some of the people involved doesn't negate the fact that was an important, important moment. here's the real test case. we've apprehended sulaiman abu ghaith. he's the son-in-law of osama bin laden. he's accused of being part of the plotting of both before and after 9/11. he was apprehended in turkey. he's been brought to the united states where he will face a trial in the three courts. under the constitution of the united states and accorded the die process that the united states constitution accords not just citizens but to everyone tried in american courts, jock wh -- okay? what is the republican party going to do about this? the republican party is going to say it's an outrage. and here's mitch mcconnell, mcconnell just earlier in the week coming down to the well of the senate congratulating rand paul on his filibuster. instead of killing 91, try them
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in court for crimes committed. this is mitch mcconnell. the decision of the president to import sulaiman abu ghaith into the united states solely for civilian prosecution makes little sense. and reveals yet again that abu ghaith has sworn to kill americans and he likely possesses information that could prevent harm to america and its allies. do we see the same motivation in mike lee and rand paul and mark rubio and ted cruz, do they come to the senate floor and say, you know what, the administration is right on this? we should be trying him in concert with the constitution? none of them are saying that. unless they say that kind of thing, this is just nonsense. >> it doesn't have to be them saying it. there has to be conservative voices, democrats, independents
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coming together to say that. i think if we have a small number of senators or leaders in congress, we're not going to get the broader scope of what's happening. >> i agree with you. i would take the national view of editorializing in favor of trying abu ghaith in federal courts. forget the senators. just show me there's some real change happening in conservatism. >> look at what stanley mcchrystal said. he said that drones are viscerally hated across the world. >> he's right. >> look at what michael hayden, the head of the foreign national security agency said. he said that this policy is a presidential access. so you've got lots of conservatives who are growing in concern about how much power we give the executive. and if you want to say it's all partisan, fine. i just don't believe it is. i think that there are some principled people on both sides of the aisle. >> and i think it was very important the way that rand paul argued.
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there were times that he made outreach to the left. there were times he was basically reading edmond burke on the floor. and saying we have to draw clear lines. if you're conservative and you don't like the 80 of secretary sebelius have broad-reaching powers you could be skeptical of the president to use the flying death robots who kill who he thinks are terrorists. >> and all these leaders. >> so conservative principles ought to make you more skeptical. rand paul said that. people listened. i think it will move the conservative base, maybe even conservative senators. >> to follow up on that, i want to play sound to hammer in on that point. you're totally right, that was important in terms of broadening, to create a constituency for real kind of -- let's say, a peaceful, lawful posture towards the rest of the world in our national security, right? that rand paul said this about
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the second amendment. right? imagine if the second amendment were being infringed. take a look. >> you can match the furor if people were talking about the second amendment? could you imagine what conservatives would say if the president said, well, yeah, i kind of like the second amendment. and i tend to when convenient, when it's feasible, to protect the second amendment? >> that's rand paul. i should note since we just play rand paul. important on-air realtime correction. i said that he voted for john brennan. he did vote against john brennan. initially he announced that he would. i regret the error. we'll be back after this. up to . now...guaranteed. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. duracell with duralock. is it when you've when left work behind,ise?
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torture regul torture regime, right? the national review is go to come saying he should be sent to guantanamo. my question to you, do you think we're going to see genuine opening-up, at this moment in the cpac, in the conservative issues? >> i think so, especially while in the white house, it's easy for republicans to call for transparency. and hopefully, we can change them into being conservative. also demanding transparency from a republican president, too. >> right. and do you think -- rand paul sort of declared victory after this whole thing at a fund-raising letter and said -- >> no he shouldn't have declared victory. i think that was his mistake. he should have said we need more transparency. >> i agree. >> and you've been working on capitol hill for years. >> for decades. >> you're in a position to judge
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whether or not this is something new or not? >> well, i think this san important measure of progress. and i think the fact that why we came down to support rand paul on the senate floor is very, very important. and we've seen these kinds of dynamics around the patriot act. and people said, well, you still have the patriot act. but we stop the patriot 2 from passing. we stopped total awareness from coming under the bush administration. so the bipartisan coalitions are extremely important. but i think now that the war is winding down, the next question will be, what will be the authority for these drone strikes. and i think that's really where we need conservatives to speak up about limited government. >> right. >> and we can't be at war with everyone all the time. >> yep. and we need democrats, too. i mean, the other thing, i should just acknowledge the obvious, right. which is hypocrisy runs in both
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directions. democrats who are incredibly upset about a variety of things in the bush administration and the obama administration. >> yeah, that's true. and the obama administration has been indefensible on its transparency and accountability. if it wants to make an argument for the powers currently asserted it should make it an appropriate way. >> in a public way. >> in a public way that lays out clearly its arguments that enables the congress and the american public to then examine, critique, to debate. to kiron's point to understand how are we actually maintaining our constitutional checks and balances. >> right. >> i think what we want is smart government that is constitutional. >> you know what i think is interesting. i do think there's a degree to which the legalism of barack obama and the people around him, rather than viewing things as exceptions to the law. they expand the law to fit the exceptions. and that has produced a really
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perverse consequence. everything has been in the four squares of the law. they want to make sure they're within the boundaries of the law. if you expand the law, now you've got this massive -- >> it's the word imminent. >> exactly. >> that white paper was a breach of law. >> kiron skinner from the university of carnegie melon university. and linda murphy. thank you very much. >> thank you. [ lisa ] my name's lisa, and chantix helped me quit.
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more spending cuts to reduce the deficit, insisting the american people agree with him. >> the number one priority for the american people is creating jobs and getting our spending under control. the american people believe that the tax question has been settled. americans know that another tax hike isn't going to help them. what they want is for the spending under control. republicans may not be the majority party here in washington, but the american people would agree with us on this. and we're going to continue to stand with the american people. >> stirring oration as ever from john boehner. actual polls say boehner is wrong about what the american want. according to polls conducted by the pew research and "usa today" in february, 62% of americans think the budget cuts that took effect on march 1st know that the budget cuts will will be an effect. so if the appetite on
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conservative policies are so limited why are the republicans convinced that the americans agree with hthem. >> the working paper pound that politicians tend to vastly overestimate just how conservative their constituents are. researchers found that liberal politicians tend to underestimate support for health care, by five or ten points. conservative politicians do even worse. they underestimate support in their districts for universal health care by a stunning 20 points. the same trend holds through for a social issue like same-sex marriage. liberal politicians seem to underestimate same-sex machine by five percentage points. conservatives underestimate by over 20 percentage point. they overestimate how conservative their constituents
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are. no wonder, we're talking about for instance cutting social security and limiting eligibility and medicare rather than say, raising social security benefits and lowering the medicare age. the findings find so much about the behavior of politicians it may be no less than the rosetta stone of american politician. joining me, jeff smith an assistant professor at the milano, the new school for management and urban policy. and chris govern, a graduate student. and one of the co-authors along with david brockman of the university of california berkley about their constituents. obviously, i love this paper because it's like a huge, huge hit of confirmation bias for me. so thank you for providing data which maps up my presifting bias. walk us through how you did this. the data that this is built on is fascinating. what do you do here? >> thanks, chris. in august, we teamed up with
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conclusion at duke and nick kansas, we launched the national candidate study. we interviewed about 2,000 candidates for legislative office across the country. part of the study, we asked them to estimate which share of their constituents supports policies. we then used a national example for that support, compared their accuracy and found pretty while inaccuracies. the data is all over the place. but there is this conservative bias that shows up there. >> and the conservative bias is interesting. it's consistent across how conservative the districts themselves are. it's consistent across a variety of things. it's just like the data, empirical, but data jumps out. >> yes, we must emphasize that it hasn't been peer reviewed. there is a systematic trend. we looked for things that we predict might predict accuracy as well as the
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ideology. things like age and race. this is the big one that jumped out at us. >> a relationship between how competitive that district is about how well you know where your constituents are on this kind of thing. >> incumbency didn't affect it. we also went back and asked respondents back in november after the election and they didn't improve either. >> so the election happens you get the democratic feedback, what's the term you guys used, constituency control? that could be the mechanic. you run for office and you say, i hate, smiame-sex marriage. and then you lose. then you say, i really got wrong my district? >> is this the vocal minority problem you? think about electives -- and it's not like the way they have the money available to run constant polls and constant town hall meetings. so they're gauging their positions on the constituents
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based on what comes to them? >> we should know, you of course as a state legislator, there's one level that state legislators could be closer to constituents because there's fewer and more local. but on another level because you're typical and can't afford to run polls? >> right. and they have sort of a war chest to keep with, with congressional leads, several millions. an average state legislator might have a war chest of $5,000 or $10,000. so they don't have the funds to be doing that. now, of course, you should be knocking on doors all the time. you should always be taking a poll. but another exception to that is a lot of state legislators have other jobs. they've got to make a living doing something else. they don't have the time to talk to voters out there. i know, chris, you didn't find a difference based on whether the state legislators were professionalized or citizen legislators, did you?
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>> that's right. just to the state legislators that we think of highly professionalized. and the pattern held there and asymmetrical inaccuracies. >> there's two different things that a legislator could be responding to. there's all the constituents and then a subset of that, your supporters. in the republican party, especially today, i think that republican politicians are very responsive, scared. >> yes. >> of their supporters. >> yes. >> and so i think calls -- counts as constituency control. but a subset of your constituent. on the democratic party, i think the dynamic is the other way. i think that a lot of times you see the democratic base moving with their leaders. >> yeah. >> most democrats now support the flying death drone about the drone program. so now republicans are polling their constituents. >> and i think it's something that changed a lot in the last
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several years. if you look back to 2004, the insurgents with net roots pulled the democratic party towards the left. >> that's right. >> now, in 2005, 2006, you got a sense of that starting to change after we lost the 2004 election yet people like chuck schumer and rahm emanuel running the two senate house campaign committees. yet they took nominees like bob casey in pennsylvania saying hey, he the nominee. we don't want barbara hafer. we want a pro-life guy. that started the democratic party top-down control. at the same time, you see in the republican party, the ted cruz, the marco rubio. the rand paul. >> yeah. >> let's say that the data does hold up. first of all i want to show this because i do think -- the first question is, is your prediction that this gap would shrink or expand if you did this for members of congress? >> you know, i think it's interesting -- i think that it's
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interesting that you're talking with jeff about size of district and connection with the constituents. we intuitively think that they would be closer. the kinds of questions we've been asking, give us a number, you need polls to do that very accurately. >> right, right. >> it depends on whether we value representation. >> but here's something that i think suggests that the same trend might be the case in -- at an actual level. house republicans have gotten more conservative while the share of voters describing themselves as conservative has stayed the same. in 1976, the percent of voters that described themselves as conservative was 32%. 2012, 35%. it's a fairly stable group. conservative rating of house republicans on the dw nominating score which we use all the time goes straight up. there's a wedge between what's happening there even if you haven't run the data at the
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national level. part of the reason i find the data so compelling precisely as we see at this natural level. when we come back, i want to talk about what account for it. there's a whole bunch of theories we could throw out. i thought yours was very interesting. sometimes miracles get messy. so we use tide free. no perfumes or dyes for her delicate skin. brad. not it. not it. just kidding. that's our tide. what's yours? ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the next wave of italians has come to america,
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all right. so, theories for why we have this phenomenon reserved from the data, chris. maya, tim just offered a theory which i thought was an interesting one on the fact that maybe the asymmetry is due to the conservative base that manages control on its politicians and a democratic base controlled by its politicians. they follow. >> yeah, i actually agree with tim on the first part of that. the state houses in this country are more polarized than 1920, part of that is redistricting and hardening within the districts. there's a point about the
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asymmetry on the democratic side is part of more complicated and part of what i wanted to challenge is, we're in a contrast particularly since 2008, in which we've. become so ideologuically polarizes on how the debates happen. there's such a contrast that democrats have gotten a reaction that has come from the ranks. >> the polling you have. constituents not voters, right? >> that's right. >> it seems to me, the first question we need to establish is, maybe they're completely right about their voters, right? it could be the case that they're absolutely nailing the ideology of their voters. in fact, the people who show up to vote, their voters, are super conservative than those at-large. they will almost certainly have more money, right? how plausible do you think that is? >> it could explain some of the variation.
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not 20 percentage points, though. nonvoters and voters actually look more alike than you would think. >> jeff. >> david mayhew, a political scientist who wrote in the 1970s, he talked about the way that politicians kind of anticipate where they think their voters are going to be, and they take preemptive measures to try to address those views. i think what you talked about, chris, the fear of the base. it's applicable here because liberals are kind of silent when there's a defection on things, you know. you didn't see liberals up in arms about elaine kagan's kind of defection on the medicaid portion. but john roberts could barely show his face at federal society meetings. >> right. >> you don't see, say, when mary landrieu supports oil drilling or joe manchin shoots a hole in obama's. >> people went after the manchin act. but i also want to talk about,
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there's a wave of constituency act, right? there's the voter. and then there's the big which is power and wealth which i want to get to right after this. for the things you can't wash, freshen them with febreze. febreze eliminates odors and leaves a light, fresh scent. febreze, breathe happy. hi victor! mom? i know you got to go in a minute but this is a real quick meal, that's perfect for two! campbell's chunky beef with country vegetables, poured over rice! [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. it fills you up right. ah. 4g, huh? verizon 4g lte. 700 megahertz spectrum, end-to-end, pure lte build. the most consistent speeds indoors or out. and, obviously, astonishing throughput. obviously... you know how fast our home wifi is? yeah. this is basically just as fast. oh. and verizon's got more fast lte coverage than all other networks combined. so it's better. yes. oh, why didn't you just say that?
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huh-- what is he doing?
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♪ hello from new york. i'm chris hayes. here with former missouri state senator, congressional date jeff smith, tim carney, and a paper that chris has authored about the way state legislative candidates perceive the perceptions of the voters in their district. particularly on issues like health care and gay marriage. and the way they systematically overestimate it. conservatives do it by a ton. i think there's a great line in the paper that fully half of the
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conservative republican candidates that you interviewed, fully, half of them, think that their district is more conservative than the most conservative in the country. half of them think they're representing a district that is more conservative than the most conservative district in the country. we talked about the possible reasons. and i want to talk about the donor class. i know having been around people that run for office. if you spend all your day talking with a certain kind of person with a certain set of beliefs, that's going to bleed into you. whether you go work at a big law firm or end up at cable news company, whatever it is your piers have a big effect. and washington, people i know have done it, it's stunning how much time is spent around donors. larry bartel has done research. support for wealthy. statement, our government could
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redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich. 52% of the general public agree with that. which is a lefty sounding like. 52% of the people polled agree. 17% of the wealthy agree, right? so one thing that may be happening here is just a systematic skew bias of the donor class? >> yeah, that's interesting. we tested the welfare reform. we ask how many constituents would support abolishment of welfare reform. the mean was about 30. among the conservatives it was up around 45 or 50. even though the districts vary in how conservative they are, very few of them are actually up at 50% on that issue. >> i've got to be skeptical of that idea on the donor. i can see it definitely drawing democrats towards the center in the right direction. >> right. >> but you see it again and again, republicans on social
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issues and economic issues getting drawn towards the center on donor. gay marriage, abortion, the wealthy donors are not the bible-thump evangelicals. they've got the hospitals, the drug companies, all those guys want to set up the exchanges. it happens again and again, where the increase in government, the republican donor class is pushing the republicans away from free markets and towards the corporatism in the middle. >> the ceos are pushing the house republicans towards the middle. >> i think we're distinguishing certain issues, right? >> right. talking about issues of welfare, and safety net programs as opposed to corporate models. if you look at what schaaping with donor investment in, say, organizing and in communities and at state level, democrats haven't been doing it. and their donors haven't been
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doing it. on the same time, in the conservative time there's lots building going into the building the infrastructure. >> particularly at the state level. >> particularly at the state level. it's smart strategy to invest in local level policy. democrats haven't been doing that and republicans haven't been doing that. >> tim, if we can throw up the same-sex marriage line graph. i think you're right, my prediction on the donor class skew would say there's less than same-sex that's actually placing the donor class to the left of the republican base and yet, the skew shows up. so that is sort of a rebuttal to my donor class area. >> so, chris, to your point that politicians will tend to incorporate of the views of the politicians around all time. i think there's another perspective.
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numerous social psychologists, political scientists, even business school professors who have studied the differences between conservatives and liberals have found pretty consistently that republicans tend to be more sure of their views. liberals tend to be more unsure. conservatives tend to be less compromising. liberals tend to be more amenable to compromising. the way that manifests itself, conservatives would like to speak to their base all the time. and liberals want to persuade people in the middle or on the right of their position which would skew their views of the electorate. >> i certainly never try to speak to a liberal audience, i know that. >> all you do is talk to your base. >> i have an anecdote here. we had a group outside of detroit. one of the issues that came up was right to work. it's interesting because it's michigan, because of strong union history, there's union support, kind of across the
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political spectrum -- >> meaning a conservative view. >> you have conservative union members that actually feel like the right to organize is quite important. >> right. >> so when governor snyder had one long conversation with the head of amway. and decided to move in a lame duck session on the right to work law against the promise that he had made. you know, it was interesting to see these white men who are relatively conservative politically, i can say listening to him for hours, really kind of -- off at snyder. >> it seems to be maladapted at the national level. the 46% problem. which is the idea if you're at the national level, it's hard to be that out of the step with where the actual public is and get elected. i think we saw that a little bit in the national election with mitt romney. i think there's a conception that some of the views he took, particularly in the primary were
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more popular, more broadly, than they actually were in the actual electorate. and that ended up being a real political liability running nor national office. i think that's not the case in the districts. i think it does end up being maladapted at the national level to being wrong conservative how they are. >> there's something about a guy like chris christie out of step with new jerseyans on gay marriage and funding, and yet he's able to retain his popularity. part of that is due to sandy, but that's an interesting case case. >> but does our democracy work? not to ask too profound a question, but the basic representation? is it actually working is there a correlation between public opinion and public policy, i want us to answer that in six or seven minutes right after this break.
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so one standard model that we think about how democratic governance works. there's individual citizens that have policy preferences. those policy preferences are aggravated in something like public opinion. and the elected representatives represent the aggregated public opinion. and when they represent and legislate, they pass laws which are relatively in sync with what people think. but, of course, people's views on things are often real ambivale ambivalent, or uninformed. some copyright laws working its way through congress, how do i feel about it? i don't know. so political leaders can shape public opinion. i think that gets a little bit to chris christie. i think it gets a little bit to rand paul. what rand paul was doing on the
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floor of the senate was intending to shape conservative opinion which is shaping a space. i wonder how you think about that in emergency roterms of yo. >> i thought this would be an easy test for constituency control. where when somebody is out of sync, you might throw the bugs out. if you look at which of the candidates one, there's sort of a gap, 50% to 65% in the district it's hard to predict who they're going to elect based on the opinion. this maps on to what the research done in the state policy outcomes. if the state is sort of in that area, the policy is not congruent with the majority. >> explain what that area means. i didn't understand that. >> so if support is higher than 50%? >> for a policy. >> for a policy. in this case, two liberal policies, the elected representative isn't always in
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step. >> i see. >> once you get above 60% or 65%. >> so they're responding to something that is not just 50 plus 1. they're responding to something that looks like 65, right? you see this in congress on issues where the public -- well, that's not true. no. there's lots of issues that -- >> i was going to say, i think it's tricky anytime you're dealing with polls who are how do you stand on a policy. >> absolutely. >> because the wording is such, nobody knows. on gay marriage. you ask that question, you get the poll results. but the expansion of gay marriage in this country to the degree it's happened has been undemocratic. whether you like it or not, it's been mostly judges putting it in. when legislators pass it, sometimes, the public, even in places like california -- >> well, that is changing because public opinion is changing. >> 30 states by ballot measure have banned it. as far as when people show up at the election booth, they are
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voting against gay marriage in general. >> less so now. >> right. >> this is the first time i've heard a constitutional interpretation as anti-democratic. because we do have a system where we have a judiciary for a reason. if we lfollowed that line of questioning we would be questioning what the supreme court did. >> democratic and good and just -- >> no, anti-majoratarian. >> and the constitution. if you had polled in 1954, the vast majority of the american public would have said no. >> which is exactly why we have these safe guards against straight anti-majoratarian rule. >> exactly. with the type of law shaping the opinion. if you look at the affordable
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care act. i want to go back to this organizing point. the town hall meetings that happened that july 2009 on the affordable care act, the polling for health care reform was at 60%. >> right. >> and literally, the polls drops precipitously during that three-month period, down -- as a result of that. >> because public opinion was not a firm thing on the affordable care act, you know what i mean. >> people were firm about they should have that and the government should do something about that. >> i think the final concept we have not really addressed here today is not just public opinion as a linear kind of phenomenon, but the intensity of public opinion. >> yes. >> we all know the stories about gun control. 90% of americans, even like 85% of nra members who want certain gun safety measures like trigger locks or what have you. but the intensity, until there's
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some event like sandy hook is all on the pro-gun side. and we get -- the gun safety people get propensity for a month or two months. >> the first person i heard articulate is was grover lindquist. conducting a poll, how do you feel about the affordable care act? either you like it or you don't. intensity is what are you going to pick a fight with your father-in-law over at the dinner table? and two-thirds about distrastra part in a poll -- >> we talked about david mayhem, in a spot where they need
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issues. >> i want to thank tim carney of the washington examiner, and chris skovron. great work on the paper. a filibuster that no one is talking about. the one that worked. after this. two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy -- and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. we've shared what we've learned with governments and across the industry so we can all produce energy more safely. i want you to know, there's another commitment bp takes just as seriously: our commitment to america. bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year.
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there were two filibusters this week. two, two, not just one. on once night there was the much talked about rand paul 13-hour headline grabbing spectacle. but a few hours from rand took the floor, senators very quietly blocked caitlin. senator paul wept on and john brennan was confirmed but ha
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halagan fell short just like conservatives did in 2011. the white house released this statement, nearly two and a half years after being nominated, ms. halligan continues to wait for a simple up or down vote. in the past, filibusters of judicial nominations required extraordinary circumstances and a republican senator who was part of this agreement articulated that only ethics issue would qualify. halligan is a graduate of princeton, georgetown law, former solicitor of new york state with the highest accommodation for the standing committee, federal judiciary committee. the only thing extraordinary about her seemed to be her credentials. she signed --
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>> miss halligan's record of advocacy led me to to believe she would bring activism on to the court. because of giving the lifetime appointment to the d.c. circuit is a bridge too far. >> it doesn't matter during her 2011 confirmation hearing halligan instead offed the second amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms. >> in 2003, you gave a speech expressing concern about federal legislation to limit the liability of gun manufacturers. you said, quote, such an action would likely cut off at the pass any attempt by states to find solutions through the legal system or their own legislatures that might reduce gun crime. end of quote. many who oppose the second amendment rights made similar arguments after the supreme court incited haller. do you personally agree that the second amendment protects individual rights to protect and bear arms.
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>> the supreme court has been strong on that, yes, it does. >> d.c. court of appeals considered the most influential court of the land over the supreme court. today, there are four empty seats on the 11-member court, so far, president obama is unable to appoint anyone to fill them. the seat that caitlin halligan is the seat since 2005. >> dan baum, author of the new book "gun guys." great to have you both here. let's segue from this point that we just made. from the intensity issue. gun owners and gun rights advocates have a lot of intensity in those feelings. >> indeed they do. they talk about their guns all
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day, every day. you made a good point, you call somebody up and you ask them about gun control, they'll say yes, five minutes later, they forgot all about it. >> right. >> i'll tell you, gun owners around the country, they are thinking about their ak-15 rifles all day every day. >> and conducted a lot of interviews in this world. >> yes. >> and this intensity is enduring, right? i guess the question is how much of this is a real visceral felt thing in the life of an individual? and how much is it the fabricated passion created by the organization of the national rifle association? >> i think the second assumption is the assumption that people in your world make all the time, and they get it wrong. this is visceral. this is deep. this was a big surprise for me. i'm a liberal democrat but i'm also a gun guy so i straddle the fence. i'm going around the country and talking about why do we like these things so much. there's two big surprises for me. i have no idea gun guys get from
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just being able to manage these very dangerous things. nobody gets hurt. they use them effectively. so when people like dianne feinstein come along and say, i don't trust you with this gun. they're like, what do you mean? you don't know anything about guns, and you don't know anything about me. so it really hits them where it hurts. and now -- you're smirking. and now they all feel like little bit players in american history. because our ability to own guns in this country, to the gun guys, represents this incredible trust that our system puts in ordinary americans. >> and so -- >> and it means something. >> and so this intensity shows up in all sorts of legislative areas around guns, right? we've seen this. but here it's shown up, you have experienced this preference intensity divide yourself as a state senator. >> i have. i have. you know, there are a few issues where you just had such an intense lobby. one was midwives.
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another was home schoolers freedom of the road riders who refused to wear motorcycle helmets. gun owners had a same type of intensity, even if they only comprised 10%, 15% of the country, you would hear from every one of them. >> i also think that the left buildings up the nra needlessly. it's not about the nra, these folks are there anyway. the nra has 4 million members. it doesn't give as much money as the pipe fitters union. it's not about the money. >> it's about genuine passion. >> it's about genuine passion. >> both things are true though, right? there's genuine passion for all the reasons that you say. when we talk about gun control, there are all different forms of gun control, right? what does it mean that 70% of nra would support background checks and yet the nra is taking a position against them? >> or caitlin halligan.
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here's a perfect example, no one knows who she is. dan does because this is what you do for a living. she signed on this brief. i should say what the brief was. basically, a bunch of states got together and tried pursue the litigation strategy of the states that support tobacco. you've created this problem that has created a huge threat in public safety. and they basically supplied a legal reasoning. i'm right about this, right? >> uh-huh. >> you're looking at this like i'm getting it completely wrong. doing this from memory. so they tried this somewhat novel, but not off-the-charts novel theory that she was the attorney general of the state of the new york. she signed off on that. >> it wasn't even her argument. she was representing a client. >> representing a client, the state of the new york. >> exactly. and it's true that republicans are trying to make guns the next litmus test. and that anything that any
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candidate has ever done on the issue of guns, a brief, spoken, testified, that is the new litmus test. we've gone from choice, civil rights, school prayer to now guns. but i don't believe that's the reason. >> right. >> to choose. >> i want to stop you right there. there's a whole lot of other judicial nominees who have similar fates who never signed on guns. i want to talk about the broader context of nominees right after this break. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour three. zyrtec®. love the air.
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it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. dan was just doubting whether the pastries are real. it's a question that you at home are asking. >> please. >> discriminating against gluten intolerance. >> i know, we get a lot of comments about that. nan, you're saying it's not about guns, it's about this broader obstruction strategy.
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a percentage of judicial nominees confirmed three of the last three presidents in the first term, bill clinton, 82%. george bush, 90%. and president obama's first term 225 days to get confirmed. vacancies went up under his first term as opposed to down as they did in president bush's first term. so we're seeing something fairly unprecedented, it seems to me. >> we are seeing the result of decades-long battle for control of the federal judiciary. for decades now, republicans have sought to appoint judges who will carry out their missions, once they become federal judges. and of course, once they're federal judges, they're there for life. when democrats are in the white house, republicans' effort is
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solely focused on keeping as few of their judges confirmed. >> right. >> judicial nominees confirmed. and we are seeing that, really, this battle, gone on for years, being played out right now. >> why is there any symmetry -- why is this asymmetry of intensity? let's remember, when some judicial nominees that president george bush -- george w. bush were filibustered by democrats. there was a massive outcry by republican senators and they precipitated a crisis. to use the constitution to get rid of that. they brought that cots, did the justice sunday. organizing. this is a montage, just to give a flavor of what that look like when everyone agreed on the republican side that every nominee deserved an up or down vote. take a look. >> it's high time to make sure that all judges receive fair up or down votes on the senate floor. >> any president's nominees,
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whether they be republican or democrat, if they have the support of the majority of the senate, they will get an up or down vote in the senate. >> regardless of party, any president's judicial nominees after full debate deserve a simple up or down vote. >> there no not be a litmus test for nominees. he or should should be confirmed. >> caitlin halligan filibustered this week i'm sure would have loved that. what came out of that, this gang of 14 deal. there's only three republican senators left from that group. john mccain, lindsey graham and suzanne collins. you only get to filibuster in extraordinary circumstances. and the three remaining parties to that deal in the senate this week, all voted to filibuster. caitlin halligan, saying
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extraordinary circumstances. >> do not get me started. because this deal that was entered into by republicans and democrats enabled republican nominees to be sent to the d.c. circuit. and we now have the situation where we've got the d.c. circuit in the hands of republican-pointed judges. this is important because we see -- >> after five years of a democratic -- >> yeah. >> we see invalidated air pollution rules. invalidated warning labels on cigarette packages, invalidated s.e.c. labels. republicans know that their judges on the d.c. circuit are going to do their bidding. it's plain and simple. and therefore, they are going to block any candidate to the d.c. circuit. it's a matter of maintaining -- >> so why are they winning?
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why do they win? why do they get more? >> because democrats are undisciplined. seriously. we just don't bring the fight. over and over. >> i think it goes back to some of the personality differences between conservatives and liberals we talked about in the last segment. conservatives, study after study, tend to believe in an eye for an eye. democrats tend to say, hey, let's figure out a way to solve this problem. >> and this process obsession, right? >> yes. and you and i have had this argument debate before. is this problem here process or substance? it's like, i don't care. this is will to power politics. this is like there's a world view that liberals have. and there's a world view that conservatives have. and judges have it somewhere between. i'm just going to say it. conservatives feel the same way
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so you fight within any means necessary within the boundaries of the rules. >> we saw that being played out recently in the effort to revise the rules. so as make it more difficult for republicans to engage in filibusters. what we saw some of my favorite senators, carl evans, rules were formed, to make itfilibuster. >> and it's going to make it harder for democrats to filibuster. >> that's what they say. the minute the republican demo control of the senate, that the republicans will take over. >> -- i disagree on that. >> two, even when democrats have the filibuster, they don't really use it that much. >> i want to talk about that deal because this was the big moment where, again, we have the
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last crisis we had with filibuster was 2005 specifically over judicial nominees and precipitated and aggravated by the republican majority, right? and that resolved in this gang of 14 solution which is not a solution. and miguel estrada did not get named to the appeals circuit. and then we have this crisis at the beginning of this term and there was a deal struck because democrats basically wimped out. this is dick durbin, when we come back, lamenting the fact that the approach on the filibuster may not have the force that we wanted it to. i love making money. i try to be smart with my investments. i also try to keep my costs down. what's your plan? ishares. low cost and tax efficient. find out why nine out of ten large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses.
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i don't think i'll ever go back to another product. see. big time taste should fit in a little time cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop. departure. hertz gold plus rewards also offers ereturn-- our fastest way to return your car. just note your mileage and zap ! you're outta there ! we'll e-mail your receipt in a flash, too. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. after caitlin halligan was filibustered, here's dick durbin lamenting to that the gentlemen's agreement arrived to, that use of the filibuster may not be enough. take a look. >> i'm sorry to say it because i was hopeful that a bipartisan approach to dealing with these issues would work. it's the best thing for this
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chamber. for the people serving here. and for the history of this institution. but if this caitlin halligan nomination is an indication of things to come, we've got to revisit the rules. if we are now going to filibuster based on such weak arches, then i think we need to revisit the rules. >> yes, revisit the rules. that's what we were all screaming for you to do at the beginning of the session. >> do you think. >> i just can't tell, do they wake up every day with some sort of amnesia, like the guy in "memento." every day is the first day and they don't know? obviously this was going to happen. >> it's groundhog day. >> that's right. >> it's groundhog day. >> he remembers. he remembers. >> yeah, he remembers. so, you know, i think the problem here is i don't think the democrats have any real expectation that this gentleman's agreement was really going to be honored. >> you don't? >> no, it's ridiculous to say that they didn't know. but at the same time they
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actually haven't done enough to address this issue of reform. and they have to make a strong issue. and it's not clear that the republicans will go along with it. so i'm not sure if they're going to get real reform. we have to bring it back to the issue of the way lobbying works with this. it wasn't just halligan harry reid's nomination for federal district court -- >> fairly nonconversational process. >> because she's a county court judge, because they're elected. she actually has a long record and has to campaign. there's a big public record of her positions. on one forum, in 2008, she said, in answer to some gun lobby citizenry that was asking about her record said that she did think that the law supported some reasonable restrictions on gun ownership, right. >> burn her at the stake.
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>> that's exactly what happened. so they pulled out this one form from 2008, senator haller actually used that. raised all the questions about her. even though she has a 70% approval rating in nevada. from the bench, from lawyers who appeared before her, on all sides of the issues. >> right. >> and she couldn't even come to -- >> when was this? >> it just happened. >> it just happened. so it's post-sandy hook? >> yes. >> gun bearer america is at full alert right now they're not getting anything go by. >> and hallor gets a lot of money from the gun lobby. >> we have seen a sea change on this. a hundred years ago, if you were qualified your ideology didn't matter. you had the famous quote from the senator from nebraska, when a judge was nominated who was
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thought to be mediocre. he said mediocre people need representation, too. it's gone totally away from that. >> of course, the right would say, we started it with bourke. >> i'm glad you brought up alicia cadish. here's the difference. if this had been a republican administration, and a republican wanted to send a name to the white house. and get that candidate confirmed. and a democrat from the staple state said no, that person would have had a hearing. that person would have been confirmed. >> here's my question to you, as someone who has been working on this through periods of democratic majorities and democratic minorities, right. do you support getting rid of the filibuster or making it into a talking filibuster, basically the merkel/udall reforms? because you're the next person
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who is going to be in a scenario of browne, some of that is going to happen with a republican president, and republican majority. the argument is you're not going to have a filibust per. you and nan, if you support it, because if you support it, then there's not a reason for anyone not to? >> well, i would say that the filibuster in certain circumstances is important. it's an important tool. however, the context is now totally different. and we have a situation best exemplified with the judges where every nominee is filibustered. every nominee is blocked. it's so preposterous that even nominees with republican support -- >> so given that, do you want to get rid of it? >> given the situation, given the situation i would say that we have a number of senators, murkily, udall, i personally was
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happy to hear dick durbin say what he did. clearly last week as the low mark on judicial nomination. >> should we get rid of it? >> i would say that if this continues if those senators are supporting the nuclear option, that is doing away with the filibuster. if they're willing to go to the mat, then i would be there. i should say, this is a struggle. not just for the d.c. circuit. this say struggle for the supreme court. we may see one or two openings. >> yeah. >> the next few years. so what are republicans doing? they're fine-tuning their skills and tactics. >> right. >> they're hoping to prepare themselves so they can dictate to president obama -- >> who he can naum nature. >> -- who he can nominate. >> so what do we know now that we did not know last week? my answer is after this.
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so what do we know now that we didn't know last week? well, we now know that there is more carbon dioxide in the air than ever before, and there was a upward spike in the carbon emissions in the last year according to new data released by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. it jumped by 7.2 parts per million since 2011 and that is the second-highest one-year jump ever recorded. so we have the highest concentrations of co2 that are 95 parts per million and we know that nasa climate scientist james hanson says that 350 parts per million is the maximum safe level in the atmosphere, and that is the level we have already surpassed. in 2009, most nations took steps to limit the climate change to a total of 3.6 degrees fahrenheit over the preindustrial averages, and this is not much wiggle room as the temperatures increase since the mid 1800s leave us two
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degrees from that, and in the words of noaa's peter tanz, the prospects of that are fading away. we know that the big bank foreclosures which have been widespread have hit more members of the military more than ever estimated. as part of the multimillion dollar settlement that jpmorgan and wells fargo entered into with the government for endemic fraud they disclosed this information, and that was anecdotal surveys that said that they had returned from service to find that the banks had brongly foreclose odd entheir homes. with know that 700 military members were wrongly foreclosed on, and a violation of the civil service members relief act which requires the banks to obtain a court order before foreclosuring on the home of a active duty
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military member. and in some cases the banks took the homes of borrowers who had never missed a payment. and we know that a small measure of justice will be done for juan carlos vieira. you probably know about james keith who has promised to pay him $300 million as part of a civil servant who worked in the a.c.o.r.n. offices who was a part of a civil lawsuit videotaping him without his consent. they asked vieira for his help to traffic girls, and through careful editing, vieira seems to be admitting to the phony plot, but keith says in in the suit that he had contacted the police when keith and giles had left. now if there is a way for congress to refund a.c.o.r.n. and restore the lost services to
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the people that a.c.o.r.n. people helped we might be looking at something that approximated justice. okay. now i will go to my guest, and begin with you, jeff. >> one thing is that where everyone talks about the gridlock between the k conservatives and liberals and one area in the states that people are agreeing on is prison reform. in texas there is the prison entrepreneurial form, and in texas, they have brought in over 400 senior executives to teach inmates how to write business plans and get out, and a recidivism rate which is nationally over 50% for inmates is less than 5% for graduates of this program. it is something that, you know, liber liberals are viewing it from the humanitarian perspective and conservatives want to solve it from a fiscal perspective, so it is a great way to do something.
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and we found out in the faux filibuster that it lit a firestorm. i do think that we have always known that the right in this country cares passionately about who judges are, and now we know that the halligan stories have been written on the front pages of the new york times and people want a change, and pressure needs to be exerted on the democrats in the senate to stand up. >> yes. maya wily. >> well, we know that wall street is making record profits, and that has had no meaningful impact on people's ability to get jobs or create jobs in this country. we should know that the projected jobs of the keystone pipeline to create originally 20,000 has dropped to below 100. and you should also know that rnc former chairman michael steele is now moving to the left which was very interesting in a conversation that i moderated between him and former governor patterson and it is on "for tv"
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if anyone wants to see it. >> dan baum? >> i know that the drones used in the united states to shoot a missile into hell's cafe is in effect, because military officials know that they kill too many, and company working on this is basically a flying sniper and small electric drone with a gun so that you can just get the guy that you want. so in the context of eric holder's comments, this makes it much easier to use an armed drone. >> my thanks to former missouri state senator jeff smith, and nan aron and dan baum author of "gun guys" which is a book i am looking forward to reading and maya wylie. and we will find out tomorrow, how rules are written with congressman bob ney fresh out of prison. and coming up next is melissa
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harris-perry, and talk about the book that everybody is talking about. lean in, lean forward and that is melissa harris-perry coming up next. we will see you right here tomorrow at 8:00. thank you for getting up. first kid you ready? [ female announcer ] second kid by their second kid, every mom is an expert and more likely to choose luvs. after thousands of diaper changes, they know what works. luvs lock away wetness better than huggies for a fraction of the cost live, learn, & get luvs. you know you could just use bengay zero degrees. medicated pain relief you store in the freezer. brrr...see ya boys. [ male announcer ] bengay zero degrees. freeze and move on.

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